By Daniel Irish

A couple years ago, I was walking (OK, stumbling) down Freemont Street in Las Vegas, Nev., sucking on a yard-long daiquiri I’d been handed at a bayou-themed slots casino when I spotted one of those half-price ticket booths that dot the city. Goggling posters and brochures for the usual magic-, ventriloquism- and topless-dancer-based reviews, my eyes floated boozily over a stage show called Fashionistas. “Funny,” I thought, “that’s the name of a porn film.” Closer inspection led me to the name of the show’s writer/director/producer: John Stagliano. Yup, the infamous porn magnate better known as “The Buttman.” Turns out the music-loving pornographer always dreamed of creating an elaborate stage musical—and what better source material than his hardcore 2003 fetish epic The Fashionistas? The show shut down in 2008 after several successful years just off the Strip. It was handsomely mounted, quite sexy (no actual nudity, though) and deeply weird. (Watching a clutch of Japanese tourists nod off to a chorus of dancers in assless rubber chaps shaking it to a Lords of Acid tune will surely stimulate a smile of sentimental reflection on my deathbed.)

Stagliano’s film has inspired two sequels, but the original remains a hallmark in adult/fetish/fuck film history. For starters, it’s shot in 35mm and boasts a very large budget. Also, it’s four and a half hours long! Although it’s nearly impossible to digest all in one sitting, it manages to hold interest—even through the many non-sexual scenes. Italian stallion Rocco Siffredi stars as Antonio, a fashion designer looking for a new “twist” to shake up his latest collection. He finds it in the rubber-encrusted bondage wear of small-time rival designer Helena (real-life dom Taylor St. Claire). This leads our overly-endowed hero on a quest to understand the underground S&M scene and—by extension—to bone the living shit out of Helena’s shy assistant Jesse (Belladonna in her breakout debut). The sex here is very raw. There are several full-on S&M scenes—which may not be much for hardcore kinksters, but they’ll provide a serious jolt to your casual dirty movie viewer. Asses are stripped of their vinyl casings and spanked to a fine pink hue before being repeatedly violated by Rocco’s gargantuan Italian sausage. Slapping, spitting and choking are par for the course here. Raunch superstar Belladonna (incongruously playing a bit of an innocent) does some things that are flat-out impressive on a purely biomechanical level.

Stagliano is famous for pioneering the “gonzo” genre of pornography. Though that’s come to mean “any amateur with a shaky, hand-held video camera,” you really get a feel for what Stagliano was aiming at with this film. The sex scenes are quite long—some up to 30 minutes in length—and have a hyperactive, no-holds-barred quality that really tests the audience’s bounds. This is Olympic-level sex, people. Do not attempt this at home. Sure, spend a few minutes surfing around the web and you can find some way sicker shit, but this is about as far as you can take so-called “mainstream” pornography. Its mix of rich style, rough sex and pretentious atmosphere probably isn’t for everybody’s taste. But the sumptuous sets, fetishistic clothes and boundary-pushing sexual gymnastics may inspire a few new sexual directions for open-minded lust birds.